The second chapter of the book I'm reading, "Bad Girls of the Bible" deals with the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. You may know the story, but if you don't you should read it, its found in the 39th Chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. "As The World Turns" has nothing on this one. Here's a REALLY abbreviated version...

The main character is Joseph. Joseph was a good guy. He was an Israelite and he'd had some rough times, having been hated by his brothers and sold into slavery, but he held his own and maintained. God loved him and he loved God, I'm telling you... Joseph was a good guy.

He caught a break and got a job working for Potiphar, who was an Egyptian and one of the Pharaoh's highest officials. (Pharaoh was the king.) Joseph liked the job, was appreciative to Potiphar, and probably thought that things were finally looking up for him. Then...

He caught the eye of Potiphar's wife. The Bible doesn't give her a name, she's just identified as Potiphar's wife. This woman REALLY liked Joseph and arranged a time to get him to her home, all alone, and her plan was to seduce him. But it didn't work.

Joseph rejected her advances. How embarrassing! This most likely caused this woman a lot of shame. After all, her husband was a big and important man around town, I doubt she heard many "no's" in her life. But Joseph told her no. And as he was fleeing from her presence (the imagery makes me cringe and laugh at the same time), she managed to grab a piece of his clothing. Joseph knew this, but he didn't go back, he just kept running. The wife told her husband that Joseph had seduced her, showing this garment as proof, and Joseph lost his job and was thrown into jail.

"Bad Girls of the Bible" makes several interesting points about this story, I encourage you to read it for yourself. But two points stood out most boldly to me as I read this story:

Point Number One: How Embarrassing! I can only imagine how Potiphar's wife felt when the lowly Hebrew boy told her "no." But I wonder if she learned anything from that experience... or did she continue doing things the way she'd always done them?

Since she tried to cover up her part in the unfortunate situation, my guess is that she continued doing the same old things, the same old way. But what a missed opportunity for a turnaround!

Sometimes things happen to us that are hurtful or shocking or embarrassing to teach us a lesson, to show us another way, and to keep us from making the same mistake over and over again.

Point Number Two: How Embarrassing! Joseph probably thought he had it made in the shade. He was no longer in that ditch his brothers had left him in (read the story), he had a job, he was living right, he was doing good, and then. Then this older woman who appeared to have come out of nowhere turned his life upside down. WHAT?

I know he was hurt and shocked and embarrassed. How could God let this mess happen to him, after all he'd already been through? He'd been proudly telling people about his God and where was his God when he needed him? It made him look like a fake, a phony who was believing in a God who didn't exist. If Joseph was around today, and had he been a woman named Josephine, he'd be a grown up church girl! Cause he would need a minute to process the fact that after all of his dedication to God, this tragedy had happened to him due to no fault of his own. Heck, Joseph could have written that book about bad things happening to good people, right?

But Joseph just kept being Joseph. He kept trusting God, kept doing the right things and was eventually rewarded with a position even better than the one he lost.

Whether we're Potiphar's wife or Joseph, I'm sure you can relate to feelings of hurt or shock or embarrassment as you go through life, doing what you do, being who you are. The lesson I take from this is to mindful of the lesson embedded in those situations and to try my best to learn from them. Now, for the sake of discussion...

Why do you think the Bible fails to give us the name of Potiphar's wife? Why doesn't she have a name? Are there times in your life when you feel as though your name or your true identity gets hidden behind something you've said or done?

Chapter One of this book, "Bad Girls of the Bible" by Liz Curtis Higgs tells the story of Evie. Evie is a young girl who is living a charmed life, the apple (pardon the pun) of her daddy's eye. She lives in a beautiful area of Savannah, with all of her wants and needs met. Evie has got it made.

She has boyfriend named Adam and the story opens with Evie and Adam attending her coming out affair. It was a really fancy event, akin to a debutante ball, for here is where Evie was to be presented to society. While there, walking through her father's beautiful garden, Evie meets up with a stranger named Devin. Devin is friendly and interesting and he entices her to visit an area of her father's land that she's been told not to visit. But she goes, encourages Adam to go and they both immediately feel shame and guilt for disobeying her father's rule.

This chapter then goes on to equate this tale to the story of Adam and Eve, found in Genesis, chapters two and three.

Here are just three of the key points presented in this chapter of the book:

- Temptation is often very attractive. In fact, the author, Liz Curtis Higgs, says that the serpent didn't "hiss", it spoke warmly.

- Temptation knows us. It knows our weaknesses and what it will take to get us to switch sides.

- Temptation knows Scripture. In the story of Adam and Eve, the serpent rearranged God's words to make his own point. This is just another reason why we have to study the Word for ourselves.

Much of this isn't new to church girls. But the author raised an interesting question in this chapter, one I'd never really thought about...

Why Eve? Why didn't the serpent choose to tempt Adam instead?

I think the serpent went to the smarter of the two. I really do!

This isn't at all to suggest that men are dumb, but I think the serpent figured that it would be easy to get Adam to do what he wanted if he used Eve to tempt him. I'm not sure it would have worked the other way around.

I’m not really sure why, I just felt down and lonely and not quite myself.

OK, I just lied. I think I may have an idea of why I was feeling that way…

See, I have some folks in my life right now who are sick. Not “unto death” as they say, but they’re not in the best of health. And as I’ve visited with these people and tried to be supportive, I’ve realized that most of them have other folks also caring for them – most notably children and/or spouses.

I have neither.

So I can’t help but wonder "who will take care of me when I’m sick? Who willbring me groceries or run my errands when I can no longer do it for myself?"

For me, it’s a frightening thing to ponder, which is why I don’t do it very often, but it is real.

Now, back when I was a married grown-up church girl I had a lot of young people in my life. They were mostly young women and little girls, nieces, who were on my former husband’s side of the family. I did a lot for these girls. A lot.

We were very close, I had no reason to believe that our relationship would ever end. And there was probably a part of me that thought that they might care for me when I became old Aunt Gail who needed some help.

But when my marriage ended, so did my relationship with these girls – a couple of whom were old enough to make that decision on their own. That was hurtful, but let’s save that for another blog post.

Anyway, when I woke up the other morning, I thought about all of the time and money and effort I’d invested in them and into our relationships and I wondered if it was worth it. And if I think of all of that as currency, I wonder what I got in return.

In other words, after I put so much of myself “on the counter” for them, what did I get back in change?

A sense of satisfaction, knowing I was doing the right thing? Check!

Some laughter and fun times? Check!

Family gossip? Check!

But was that really enough? In some ways it was, it other ways it was not.

Thankfully I have biological nephews and a niece whom I love with all my heart and who love me back. I know they can be depended upon in my time of need, but whatever they do for me will be done out of the goodness of their hearts. They don't "owe me" the amount of change that these other people did and that's because they have great parents and a strong support system in place, so they have never required as much from me.

One thing this journey called Life has taught me is to count my change and to do so honestly. If I’m putting out a lot more in terms of time and treasure than I’m getting back, maybe I need to stop, change course, and do something different.

It reminds me of something that happened when I was in the 6th grade…

It all revolved around a girl named Ann (not really, but for the sake of illustration we shall call her “Ann.”) She was very unpopular, but she was also very mean, so you don’t need to feel too sorry for her.

For example, once I returned to school after having lunch at home with my grandmother, and Ann had told my friends that my grandmother was dead. She was not a nice girl.

Anyway, one day Ann’s mother came to school with the intention of making us feel horribly for not being her daughter’s friend. She told us a short story, one I that I guess she thought we could relate to since we were somewhere around 11 and 12 years old. Ann’s mother said:

“When you put your money in the bubblegum machine, you expect to get bubblegum. Now, when Ann tries to be nice to you, she expects you to be nice to her in return.”

At the time, I thought this was the dumbest thing I’d heard. And it only served to make us think that not only was Ann mean, her mother was stupid! Poor Ann. I tell you, I laughed about that episode for years, I really did, which is why I can so easily quote for you something I heard so many, many years ago.

But now I get it and I’m no longer laughing.

She was concerned that if Ann were to “count her change” she’d see that she was giving away, or paying out, a lot more than she was getting back. And it must have hurt her to see her daughter being treated this way.

Maybe we all need a little of Ann’s mom in us to force us to ensure that we’re not being taken advantage of… to pay attention to who we help and why we help them… and to make us count our change.

Hello and Welcome to my blog!

I'm a grown up "church girl" who is bouncing back from some hard blows, including an ugly divorce, financial hardship, and dreams deferred. Now, more than ever before, I am embracing the idea of transformation and beautiful new beginnings.